In affairs of State I seldom used anyone else but followed Bartenstein alone, but I also availed myself of his counsel in all other questions, particularly my private affairs, troubles, and cares, and always profited by it. My chief maxim was: if man is not true to God, what can he expect from him? He shall not be blessed.
Bartenstein and Haugwitz gave me what I needed for the State and the preservation of the Monarchy. Tarouca and Koch supplied me with consolation, counsel and private information for my own knowledge and correction; and so long as I live I shall be mindful of them, their children, and their children’s children for the services which they rendered to me and the State.
And I also enjoin those who come after me, ever to be mindful of their kinsfolk for all time, so long as there be any such in this world, since my chief motive in composing this record, besides that of informing my successors, is that their names should be preserved after them and their offspring receive the mede which I could not render them sufficiently.
But to come back to the true course of events, I turn to
Section IV
which shows the constitutional changes, in the Ministries and the Provinces, which I carried through after the conclusion of general peace in accordance with the system which I established for the preservation of the Monarchy.
In the preceding section I have already described the defects and abuses of the Constitution then in effect, and felt myself the more compelled to abolish it, because Divine Providence had shown me clearly that the measures essential for the preservation of the Monarchy could not be combined with these old institutions, nor put into effect while they existed.
Each one of my Ministers readily agreed that if the Crown and scepter were to be preserved, it was most necessary to keep a standing force of over 100,000 men, and consequently indispensable to bring new system and order into the extreme confusion into which the finances had fallen.
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